


White Spinel's Gem Perfection Program

by HaroThar



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Conditioning, Corrupted Steven, Gen, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 20:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20972423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaroThar/pseuds/HaroThar
Summary: What if someone stole Steven away and hurt him until he broke? What if she then let him loose on his old friends? What if Steven fucking snapped?





	White Spinel's Gem Perfection Program

**Author's Note:**

> This is a birthday gift for the lovely and wonderful Zeke who has great ideas and sometimes I write them. Love you nerd.  
Also, the art included in this fic was drawn by Zeke, I should mention.
> 
> A note: for part of this, Steven thinks of himself with she/her pronouns, as a result of Trauma.

His mother, his mother, his mother, his mother, his mother.

His mother had been pink, rose.

He was the earth, perhaps, the soil from which all life and healing sprung. Steven Universe, human, earthen. 

Right?

...what happened when the dirt dried up?

When it was used-

yeah, used. When it was all used up. Was he supposed to just lie fallow for a year, ten, a thousand? Would he live that long? He knew, as all children knew, that he would one day have to say goodbye to his own father’s corpse, but what about his friends? Connie? Sadie? Jenni? Onion? Would he outlive them, watch them die and watch their children die?

Maybe he could’ve talked to Amethyst about it. Vidalia, she was an adult now, two kids of her own. Mortal. Amethyst had always loved humans, the same way-

-she-

-had, she’d lost them before, maybe she could help. Steven had always felt he could depend on Amethyst.

But the Crystal Gems weren’t around anymore. He didn’t know where. He’d checked their rooms. He’d texted them. Asked his dad. Asked Vidalia. Asked the pink haired lady Pearl hung out with sometimes. They were just… gone.

First, Steven assumed they were off on an important mission, and had left him behind. Then, he assumed the worst--something terrible had happened. Now, he wasn’t sure.

_They abandoned you_ something inside Steven’s head repeated, over and over. It didn’t sound like his own headvoice, was the thing. It didn’t… it didn’t _exactly_ sound like Rose’s, either, but, he’d only ever heard her voice in the one shitty vhs tape recording, but. It was feminine. It was older, deep, and playfully cruel. 

And wasn’t that everything he knew his own mother to be?

He called Garnet again.

“Come on,” he begged the phone. “Why aren’t they answering?”

“Because they left you,” a stranger answered, and Steven whirled to face her. She was sitting at the kitchenette, one leg crossed daintily over the other, back straighter than a light pole and very, very tall. Very, very pale, too.

“Who are you?” he asked, his shield out already. Generally, meeting new gems meant they would try to kill him. But generally, his friends were with him.

“I am White Spinel,” the woman stated, rising with a delicate professionalism. “The ‘White’ part is an important way to distinguish between us, so don’t go leaving it out. We Spinels are very different, depending on our coloration.”

White Spinel smiled at him with a plasticity Steven had never before encountered, and had no idea how to deal with. “Now come along.”

“I’m…” Steven said, feeling like he was three steps behind in a conversation that had barely started, “not going anywhere with you.”

“Certainly you are,” White Spinel stated. “You cannot stop me, and your so-called friends are nowhere to be seen. Do you know why, Quartz?”

Steven frowned, his hand starting to tremble behind his shield. It flickered, just along the edges. 

“Because you’re _not_ the Rose Quartz they loved. There’s nothing keeping them attached to this backwater rock, now.” White Spinel stretched, like something out of a horror movie, and Steven couldn’t summon a second shield, could only prevent one of her hands from stroking his cheek softly, almost tenderly. Sickeningly. “No one wants a stem whose bloom has been cut off,” she stated with false sweetness, then wrapped her fingers, one two three four five, around his neck, and squeezed.

\--

Greg wasn’t handling it well.

Amethyst wasn’t either. Steven was her--for lack of a better term--brother. Her family, too. But she understood that it was different, for humans, for Greg. Steven going missing right before the Crystal Gems reformed from… _whatever_ had managed to poof them, hit them all really hard. The “what if.” The “if I had reformed faster, if we had just gotten back a little bit quicker.” The “we should have done something.”

Greg didn’t have that, at least. This was all, pure, 100% parental freakout. Amethyst tried to help him with it as much as she could. Most days, they were just miserable together. Some days, one or both of them would try to cheer the other up. Some days, even, it would actually work, and they would forget about Steven for an hour, an hour and a half, have a bright and cheerful respite from the long, long year spent wondering where Steven was, looking for him, endlessly searching, begging strangers to keep an eye out.

Something was blocking Garnet’s vision. Amethyst knew that was hard for her. Pearl had failed the one final thing Rose had ever asked her to do. Amethyst knew that was hard for her. Amethyst had no power that should have been helpful, and no oath to uphold. She just. Missed him.

She saw him almost everywhere. A year wasn’t long by gem standards. It shouldn’t have been. But somehow, the one year without Steven felt longer than the five thousand that came before him. And in that year, she’d mistaken every somewhat short, curly haired human for Steven. Anyone in a pink jacket with their back turned. Sometimes even just the sound of flip flops thwacking against a wooden surface had Amethyst on her feet, staring, looking for the source of the noise before her inevitable disappointment. What were the chances of Steven just… walking back into their lives?

“Hi Amethyst!”

She was hearing things, she had to be, the voice was different, slightly, but--

No, it really was him. It really, really was. She ran to him, disbelieving, crying, “Steven!”

“Aw, you’re so happy to see me!” Steven said, something strange in his voice but Amethyst wasn’t registering it, overwhelmed, he was back, he was here, in her arms, his hands… not holding her back. “That’s nice.”

She needed to reform.

Thoughts were hard, when she’d been poofed, always were, but certain, primal things stuck with her, and she _needed_ to reform _now!_ To hell with limb consistency and spatial allotment, she needed a form around her gem immediately or there might not be a gem left to form around.

And she was deep-cut, so she’d always had a leg up over other gems, in that department.

“Haha, oh I remember this,” Steven’s voice--not Steven, it couldn’t possibly be Steven--said. “You did that with the worm thing in your room once. It worked out better for you this time, though.”

“W-Who are you?” Amethyst tried to ask aggressively, but her mouth had come out malformed, her right leg facing backwards. It looked. It looked just like him, but a year older. Sounded just like him, but a year older.

But no, that wasn’t right. Not _just_ like him. His voice had a strange distortion, a perky flatness. And his eyes. They were diamonds. 

“Well, you used to call me Steven,” he said, and a pink knife grew out of the palm of his hand. And then another, out of his wrist, and then more, covering his arms, growing from him the same way his bubble used to, except his bubble was defensive. Protective. This wasn’t. “Now you can call me Thorn.”

He lunged, arms wide as though to hug her, but he was cactus-quilled with bright pink spikes and so she dodged, as best she could with a backwards leg. She tried to process what was happening, and barely got her whip out. But her whip--she couldn’t hurt Steven! Not when she’d missed him so long! Not when there was something so clearly wrong with him!

“Steven,” she forced her mouth to make the words, “who did this? Why are you like this? I’ll help,” she promised, she swore, took up an oath of her own. “I’ll fix you, just tell me what’s wrong.”

Steven laughed.

“You even mean that, don’t you?” Steven asked, with his diamond eyes and his distorted voice. “Oh, Amethyst,” Steven was faster now, too fast, her whip couldn’t keep up (couldn’t, she couldn’t hurt him), “you always were my best friend.” Steven had his hand, spiked, through her stomach, and with his other hand he reached up, and plucked her gem from her chest.

\--

It was only the reflexes of a war long-won and a lifetime of catching and bubbling monsters that kept Pearl from being immediately poofed. She’d barely heard the aggressor approach--it must’ve been a fast monster--no wait, human? No, 

no, 

nonono, 

no no no no no no no _no!_

“Steven?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at her with terrible eyes and struck again, two shields hovering over his limbs and colliding with her spear.

“Steven, Steven it’s me! Pearl!” Pearl shouted, having to duck as one of the shields was suddenly launched from his arm and embedded itself behind her. 

Steven didn’t answer, something wrong, something wrong with her boy. He took aim at her and shot another shield, and another, and more, faster than Pearl thought he could even summon them. She yelled platitudes as she danced away from them, spinning, leaping, but she leapt too high, and one of the discs sliced off her arm.

She hit the ground rolling, unable to stand immediately, needing to focus on keeping her form from poofing. Dismembered, she stood, using her spear as a brace.

“Please, Steven, what’s happening?”

He didn’t answer, just launched another disc at her.

“Steven, talk to me, please,” Pearl begged as she stumbled back, and then Steven was in close, shields hovering over his arms again. Faster than she remembered. She was hard pressed to keep up with only one hand and a stub, but she got her spear between her and each strike, the shields colliding heavy and fast as Steven relentlessly pounded at her. If he attacked with both shields at once, she knew, she wouldn’t be able to block them both, not down an arm. 

“Steven, please!” Pearl begged again, crying now, rattled by his silence, by the anger she saw in those diamond eyes. 

Steven aimed low, and Pearl wasn’t fast enough to keep her left leg. She heard it poof as it detached from the rest of her, and tried to get up, off the ground, off her back, Steven needed her, something was so wrong, why wouldn’t he say anything, she had to get up, she had to _fight,_ fight like she’d fought in the war, desperate and violent--but her _boy!_

Steven set one foot on her chest, and stared down at her as she cried.

“This is your fault.” He reared his arm back, sunlight glinting off the shield, and brought it down on her neck.

\--

Something was wrong. Amethyst blipped from Garnet’s vision, and like a tight wound spring she bolted for where she’d last seen her. Not here, no traces of anything that was here, no marks of gem ships or of a fight. Then, as Garnet cast about uselessly, Pearl vanished, and Garnet ran there, fast as her legs could take her, fast as she’d run in her life. She cast about in her visions, searching for the thread, searching for what timeline they were in, there were too many possibilities, none of them were lining up right, she didn’t have enough information, there wasn’t--

“Steven!?” Garnet called, skidding to a stop. The timelines where Steven was back clamored to the forefront, new information clearing her sight, but there were still too many--where were Amethyst and Pearl--and then he turned to face her, and the timelines boiled down to one.

Those eyes. Those diamond eyes. They meant that Steven had returned to them, only to fight them. That the reason Amethyst and Pearl were eclipsed from her vision was because Steven had defeated them and sent them away, sent them to whatever place he’d been, this last year. 

“No,” Garnet whispered, taking two steps back, daunted by the reality she stood in, frightened by the anger she saw in her child’s face. “Steven, no, this can’t,” she said, quiet, too small for the body she was in, “this can’t be happening, this can’t be the timeline we’re in…”

Steven, wrong-Steven, laughed bitterly, throwing his arms wide. “Hey, that’s what I thought! That’s what I thought for _months_ while I waited for you to come rescue me!”

Steven used to be able to jump, jump high and light and float gently down, control the speed at which gravity cradled him. Now, the power was warped, and Steven slammed into Garnet like a bullet, his short legs propelling him in a shot. 

“You’ll come for Pearl when she goes missing!” Steven shouted at Garnet, who summoned her gauntlets onto her fumbling hands. “I bet you went looking for Amethyst too!”

“Steven, I--” Again, he slammed into her, brutal and heavy. 

“Why didn’t you go looking for me?” Steven shouted at her, voice pitched wrong, distorted, warbling. 

“I did!” Garnet shouted, pleaded. “I’ve looked for you every day!”

Another lunge, this time from the side, and Steven knocked off Garnet’s visor, and she heard it clatter twice before fading from existence. All three of her eyes were blown wide.

“Am I supposed to believe that!” Steven sneered. 

“Steven, yes, something held you outside of my vision, I--”

“I was on the _moon!”_ Steven shouted, his shoulder plowing into her gut, the full blow landing, unguarded. “I was right there! If you’d actually bothered to look for me, you would’ve found me!”

The moon, it couldn’t be, such a simple place--

“You let me rot up there!” Steven shouted at her, another blow colliding with her body, unguarded, she couldn’t, she, “You _left_ me with her!”

_With who?_ Garnet couldn’t ask, as Steven brought two hands held together down, straight down, right into her crying face.

\--

“Well done, Thorn,” White Spinel purred into her earpiece, having received the Ruby and Sapphire. “I believe that’s all of your old ‘friends,’ is it not?”

“Yes ma’am,” Thorn answered, staring up at the half-sliver of the moon that was visible, even though the sun was up. “I am free of my attachments, and ready to take my place on Homeworld as Pink Diamond,” she stated, the Phrase unsaid before, but burned into her memory as much as any of her Phrases were. 

“Perfect,” White Spinel praised, and Thorn felt some twisted pride at having pleased her. “I’ll be down in just a second, I need to finish packing up here. Half humans are so messy.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Thorn apologized on reflex, bowing her head despite the fact that White Spinel could not see her. 

“Stay right where you are, starlight,” White Spinel cooed, and it was as much of a dismissal as anything. Thorn turned her earpiece back off. 

“Pearl?” Greg called out, loud and searching, and Thorn whirled, eyes wide, the broken, dried up, dead thing in her chest _aching_ with a sudden and fierce need.

“It’s not like her to be late…” Greg muttered to himself, running a sunburned hand over his bald spot, and it was him, it was really him, Thorn was looking right at him, right there. She opened her mouth, heart pounding in her ears like it hadn’t in months.

“Steven?”

The anger response--trained into her to react to any time someone said that name--flared, but was drowned out just as fast, as Greg ran, on his slow, human legs, and Thorn collapsed into the hug that she was given. 

“Steven! Oh my god, you’re here!” Greg cried, pulling back to look Thorn in the face, already bawling big blubbering, delighted tears, and Thorn pawed at his arm, gripped with a shaking hand at his t-shirt and pulled him back, back in, back into another hug. She wrapped her arms around him as best she could, her arms still too short, his gut still too big, and he smelled so safe, familiar despite the absence, like warmth and home and comfort. 

“Dad,” she gasped, and hey look, she was crying too. She hadn’t done that in… a while. “Dad, dad!” She clung to him, needy, desperate, fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt.

“Oh Steven,” her body flinched, rage surfacing, but it was drowned by a broken sob that forced itself from her mouth, “Oh Steven, oh, oh my god, I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’m right here schtu-ball, it’s okay, I’ve got you, you’re home.”

Greg knelt, and now he was shorter than Thorn when he did that. He touched her face gently and pet back her hair, eyes searching all over her face as she cried and tried to get back in, tried to get his arms to wrap around her again, solid and warm and safe.

“Steven--” she flinched, “--buddy, what happened to you?” Greg asked gently, so gently, but not gentle enough to keep the memories from coming back at his question. 

She pushed away, trying to step back, stumbling over something--a rock, a root, whatever--and Greg caught her hands.

“Hey hey hey, shh, easy, Steven, easy, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t--you can’t be here!” Thorn told him, pushing at him, she was so much stronger than him, so much, gem strength in her veins while he was so fragile and breakable, but she couldn’t push him off. “She’s coming to collect me soon, if you’re here when she gets here she’ll, she’ll--” Thorn was sobbing outright now, mind filled with horrible images of what she’d been through, that first month, but with her father this time, and he wouldn’t live through it. 

Greg kept his eyes on Thorn’s face, searching another moment, as Thorn vainly attempted to push him off again, push him away, get him away from her before White Spinel could come and kill him.

“Okay,” Greg said, “I believe you, schtu-ball. She’s coming here?”

Thorn nodded, sobbing, “You need to leave!”

“How does she know where to find you?” Greg asked, voice uncharacteristically steady, even though she could hear the panic underneath it. 

“E-earpiece,” Thorn choked out, tapping her ear.

“Oh please tell me that’s not fused to your body,” Greg whined, tone and expression more of what Thorn was used to, in freaky gem nonsense that was out of his depth.

“It’s not,” Thorn gasped, and pulled it out to show him. She couldn’t leave it out for long--White Spinel would be furious--but she could give her father this comfort, maybe, before she was taken away forever.

“Okay,” Greg said, “okay, okay,” he sounded like he was trying to calm himself down, even as he pet Thorn’s hair from her face and patted her shoulder. “Is that the only way she can find you?”

Thorn nodded, wondering why that was relevant, and then Greg stood up, plucked the earpiece from her hand, and stomped on it.

“Dad, no!” Thorn tried to gasp, shocked out of crying. She was going to--if White Spinel found him, Greg would--

But Greg wasn’t interested in what Thorn had to say about the earpiece or White Spinel’s anger. He picked her up and _ran,_ slow on his human legs, clumsy with his weak, human arms, and she was too stunned to stop him (she didn’t want to stop him, please, please, take her home, keep her safe, she didn’t want, she didn’t--).

It wasn’t until the door of the van was slammed behind her that she allowed herself to process that this was actually happening. She was being stolen again, and this time her father was her captor. 

White Spinel would find her. Would find them. Thorn couldn’t hide from her forever, but maybe, maybe, just a little while, please…

The blanket in the bed of the van smelled like her father, and Thorn wrapped herself up in it and cried. Cried as Greg drove them out of Beach City, away from where White Spinel would search for her, not find her.

White Spinel had been so confident, so sure that Thorn wouldn’t deviate, would poof her old friends and go with her, and Thorn had, Thorn had obeyed, had been ready to go to Homeworld, but.

But here was Greg. Human, simple Greg. Her _dad,_ and he was the only thing standing between Thorn and White Spinel’s plans. And so much of Thorn wanted to believe he could. That he could stand in the face of anything and keep Thorn safe.

She’d learned a long time ago that Greg was human, and mortal, and breakable, but the childish sense that her dad was invincible persisted anyway. 

When the van finally stopped, Thorn didn’t try to move. She hadn’t been told to, and she didn’t want to. Greg pet her hair once before getting out of the van, and she laid there in the silence for a little while. She was good at lying in silence. It took up most of her time not spent training with White Spinel. 

Voices, muffled, closer, the door opening. “Steven!”

“Connie!” Thorn shouted in return, sitting up, reaching out from beneath the blanket and clasping her hand.

“Steven, oh my god!” Connie shouted, tackling her into a hug and sending them both sprawling onto the floor of the van. The anger response was harder to tamp down, now, even though Connie was the one calling Thorn that name. And Thorn never, ever wanted to hurt Connie.

“You’re here!” Connie cried, “You’re okay!” Connie pulled back and Thorn watched her face collapse, her gentle thumb brushing at the temple near Thorn’s eye, “Sorta okay.”

“Not, not really okay,” Thorn said with a shaky, definitely not that convincing smile. 

Connie’s face hardened. “Right, come inside, mom and dad are fine with letting you two stay for as long as we need in order to figure this out.” Connie helped Thorn to her feet and out of the van, rushing her inside the house with a wary glance at the sky, like White Spinel could be hovering just overhead. “It’s going to be okay, Steven.”

Thorn gasped, and grit her teeth. “Please don’t call me that,” she asked.

“Call you..?” Connie trailed off, Greg firmly shutting the door behind them.

“Steven,” Thorn spat the name, “Please don’t call me that.”

Connie and Greg shared a look over Thorn’s head, but that was fine, as long as they didn’t call her that name anymore that was _fine._

“Okay, buddy,” Greg said, confused but patient, accommodating. “What should we call you instead?” he asked with a warm hand on Thorn’s shoulder, and she relaxed.

“Thorn,” she said, and Greg and Connie shared another look.

“Alright,” Greg said, “That works. Thorn,” he said the name like he was testing it, examining the taste, “can you tell us what happened?”

So Thorn curled up on Connie’s couch with Greg’s blanket pulled tight around her shoulders, Connie’s parents sitting across from them, and she told her story. The year spent with White Spinel, how she’d lost her name, her gender, and had been trained properly, trained to be the gem she was supposed to be. Thorn told them about her Phrases and her new weapons and the deep, abiding hatred she’d gained for her friends, her ‘friends’ who had abandoned her. She told them about the moon. The barely-enough-to-stay-alive food. The things White Spinel had done to her. 

“Alright,” Greg said, placing his warm, shaking hand on top of her folded, trembling ones. “Alright, that’s a lot. That’s, oh Ste--Thorn, I’m so sorry,” Greg was teary-eyed but, surprisingly, holding it together. “You’re pretty exhausted, kiddo. Why don’t we, we try to get some sleep, and we’ll tackle this in the morning, okay?”

Thorn nodded, feeling her exhaustion only after Greg mentioned it. She was so tired. 

\--

Greg was not a stranger to crying. 

He did it, publicly, often, and the amount and intensity had skyrocketed in the last year.

But he had never cried like this, almost-silent, leaned against the doorway of someone else’s home, muffled by his own arm pressing into the wood of the frame. Mr. Maheswaran set his hand on Greg’s back, and let him cry. Greg had never cried with dignity, and he wasn’t starting, but he was afforded his grief as the children settled in for the night--in the basement, as far from the moon as they could get.

“Greg,” Mrs. Maheswaran said. Neither of them were particularly good at emotional encounters, but Priyanka was definitely the worse of the two. Even though she worked in a hospital. Bless her heart, she tried, though. “You and… Thorn, can stay as long as you need. We won’t--there’s not much we can do against an evil space rock, but we’ll take care of you, as best as we can.”

“Thank you,” Greg choked, and Doug stroked his thumb over Greg’s shoulder blade.

“No need to thank us,” Doug said, and settled his hand more firmly on Greg’s shoulder. “You should. You should sleep, too. This is… a lot, for a father.”

Greg wrapped his arm around Doug’s shoulder and leaned on him, wiping fruitlessly at his eyes and running nose. How could he have let this happen to Steven? How could anyone have done this? Steven was such a good kid, so kind, so caring, so empathetic it was a super power all on its own, who would _do_ this to him? And now, he had his little boy back, but broken and changed, all wrong. The worst were his eyes. They stared so vacantly, even when Steven looked at Greg his diamond eyes just stared right through him. 

How to fix this? How could he? He’d always, always been Just Greg, and his son, he’d always faced down so much more than Greg ever could. How was Greg supposed to help, now, any more than he’d been able to with the corrupt gems, with the teleportation and the spires and all that gem stuff that was over his human head? More immediately, how was he supposed to get any sleep, with his son in the basement hurt so badly as this?

Somehow, he did manage to steal a few hours, and he was woken by Connie, bright Connie, slamming her giant pink sword down on the breakfast table.

“Alright, plan of action!” she said proudly, loudly, young fists balled tightly and determination fierce in her eyes. Steven was in her shadow, taller but somehow, somehow smaller, staring at her with vacant diamond eyes that seemed less.

Less vacant, than the night before.

“Thorn and I are going to get the other gems back from White Spinel, ideally while she’s still looking for Thorn here on Earth. We need to head over to the barn and grab Lapis and Peridot, since Lapis can get us to the moon, and also we need to find Lion without alerting Spinel--pardon, White Spinel, to our location. Greg,” Connie leveled a pointed finger at him, and he rubbed his bald spot blearily. “Can you find Lion?”

“Uh, maybe?” Greg said, already adrift, already three steps behind, but, if that was how he could contribute, then, of course he’d do it.

And then he had to laugh, because of course this was how this was going to work. He didn’t understand what had happened to Steven, not really, not meaningfully, but he would be there to listen as Steven spoke. He didn’t know how to fix anything, but he didn’t have to, these children were so much smarter than he was. Greg’s role in Steven’s life remained as it always had been: someone to come home to, and lean on, and Greg would give him all his support and love, always, always. 

“Are we sure we should be jumping into this so soon?” Greg asked, because he needed to make sure, and Steven and Connie nodded. 

“We need the gems if we’re going to keep White Spinel from taking me again,” Steven said, his voice having lost some of its strange quality with sleep. Greg hugged him, and Steven hugged back, relaxing a little. “I should… Connie and I talked, a lot, last night. And this morning. I’m still mad at them, but I think that’s White Spinel’s fault. I need to… get my head back on right.”

“Okay, schtu-ball,” Greg said, petting at his wild curls. “Any way I can help, call me, okay?”

Steven nodded, and Greg felt deep relief. Diamond eyed as he was, Steven smiled.

“Alright, let’s get cracking then!” Connie said.

“Breakfast first. You kids eat, I’ll try to go find Lion,” Greg said, ushering them towards the Maheswarans’ kitchen. He set his hand on Steven’s shoulder and, as much for his own sake as for his son’s, said, “It’s going to work out alright.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/Critiques/Reviews appreciated always!


End file.
